Burgess bristles over Medicaid fight

Rep. Michael Burgess, who is one of the medical doctors in Congress, got into a heated argument with MSNBC host Craig Melvin on Thursday over Texas’s decision to not expand Medicaid, with Melvin saying Burgess’s argument didn’t make “a great deal of sense.”

“The heck it doesn’t!” the Texas Republican fired back. “What do you have to do to get fired by this administration? What does it take? What degree of incompetence must you exhibit in order to be fired by Barack Obama?”

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Appearing on MSNBC Live, Melvin had been going after Burgess over the uninsured Texans that could be covered by Medicaid if the state accepted federal dollars from Obamacare to expand it.

“Folks in Texas who pay federal income taxes like they’re supposed to, they’re paying for the service anyway. Why not take advantage of it? Why not let Uncle Sam shoulder some of the costs of health care in that state?” Melvin asked.

Burgess said, looking at the issue “rationally,” the Supreme Court gave Texas an “opportunity” when it made the expansion optional to see what happens in other states first.

“How is that rational, though? How is that rational” Melvin followed up.

“It is absolutely rational. How is it rational to expand a broken program?” Burgess said. “I mean, why in the world if you were going to reform health care from this country from soup to nuts would you expand Medicaid? Any doctor in Texas will tell you right now, Medicaid reimburses between 25 and 33 percent of the cost of delivering the care.”

Burgess said the uninsured will be able to go into a federal exchange, once the enrollment website is working.

“There is an option that already exists, but, you know, the website itself is just a symptom. It’s just a symptom of a larger problem. It’s like when I was in practice and someone said, ‘I’ve got a fever, doctor.’ But that’s just a symptom,” Burgess said. “The problem is this law was so flawed right from the get go, I don’t think it was ever intended to work.”

That was when Melvin said Burgess wasn’t making sense, asking how the website not functioning was tied to the failure of the law itself.

“You start with an incompetent group of people trying to craft major public policy done as a partisan exercise and now is it any wonder three and a half years later that they weren’t able to get this right? What else are they going to get wrong?” Burgess said.

Melvin started to push back again, but then wrapped up the interview saying he wished they had more time and inviting Burgess back.